


Accessory After the Fact

by beswathe



Category: Persona 2, Persona | Revelations Persona
Genre: Canon compliant for the most part, F/M, Ficlet Collection, Fluff without Plot, M/M, One Shot Collection, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2019-10-10 23:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17435258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beswathe/pseuds/beswathe
Summary: A series of Katsuya-centric ficlets. Some shipping, some gen.





	1. Distance Call (Ulala/Katsuya)

**Author's Note:**

> These ficlets were first written for tumblr requests circa 2016/17, but I've brushed them up a bit.

“ _So_?” comes Ulala’s voice down the line. Her tone is hushed, conspiratorial, though she needn’t have bothered because Katsuya knows she’s alone at this time of day. That’s just how she is when she gossips. “What’s it like?”

“Well,” Katsuya begins, then stops, not to consider the question. It’s to wheel his suitcase past the threshold and click the door shut behind him, phone held precariously to his ear by his shoulder.

The concierge had promised a room with a view, but Katsuya supposes they’d said nothing about it being a pleasant one—and while the furniture is simple, it’s all he really needs given how long he’ll be staying. Three days, a temporary consult on an arson case that feels, given his record, as unremarkable as the view.

He reckons Ulala, who didn’t even _want_ to accompany him, is far more excited about it than he is.

“It’s acceptable,” is his ultimate assessment of the decor.

He drags his suitcase along while he drifts toward the window, preparing for Ulala to ask about the location, too. But she doesn’t. Not yet, at least, too busy clucking her tongue with what he assumes is disappointment.

“That’s not an answer! Do they have those little pillow chocolates?”

“I—what?”

“You know. They sometimes put candy on the pillows.”

Though she can’t see it, Katsuya smiles against his better judgement.

“I think you’re overestimating how much my precinct is willing to spend on accommodation.”

“They can’t put their best officer up in a decent suite? That’s disgraceful.”

His smile softens, slightly thrown. He hadn’t been waiting for something like that, hadn’t anticipated it, no matter how often she glibly informs him he’s only modest because he’s fishing for compliments. Still, receiving them seems to bewilder him slightly less each time. He’s figuring out how to accept them without waiting for the catch.

What he hasn’t quite figured out yet is how to _respond_ , so he decides it’s easier if he sidesteps it entirely. A bad habit of his.

“Are you sure you called the right officer?”

The quip he earns is instant, but he’d expect nothing less.

“Hey, I’ve met your co-workers. Calling you the best isn’t saying much.”

“I'll pretend I didn't hear that,” he says, as he scans the room she's disparaging; it deserves a fair shake. “Oh. There’s one of those small refrigerators.”

“ _Ooh_ ,” Ulala says, louder; he pictures her leaning intently into the phone. “Bring me all the tiny drinks! I love those.”

“You do realise I’d have to pay for them?” Katsuya raises a brow. “It would be cheaper to buy the standard bottles.”

“But where’s the fun in that, Mister Moneybags?”

Instinctively, Katsuya bites back a laugh. Not because he doesn’t want to concede he finds her funny—insufferable as she might be when encouraged—but because he’s long trained himself to wield better self-control. Failing to smother the whole thing, it emerges as a huff.

Then he goes back to examining the street. The silence isn’t an uncomfortable one, not when he can hear Ulala’s soft breathing on the other end and know she’s all right. A yellow car passes below, one that resembles those taxis from American movies; his eyes have absent-mindedly followed it almost to the corner by the time Ulala speaks up.

“I miss you.”

It’s another thing he hadn’t been anticipating. It’s also precisely the kind of thing he’d wanted to avoid.

Katsuya opens his mouth to speak, but as there are far too many things he wants to say, he frowns instead.

Ulala hadn’t wanted to come due to work commitments, and she laments the salary but it’s money that’s her  _own_. He can’t ask her to drop everything to follow him—he wouldn’t want her to—but that doesn’t change the fact she would, if given the go-ahead. Her life on hold for his.

And despite knowing he hasn’t done anything wrong by coming here, he nonetheless feels guilty about it.

“I’ve only been gone a few hours,” he says, after a moment.

“Oh, you think I’m counting down the minutes, Katsuya?” It’s Ulala’s turn to huff, though most certainly not with amusement.

“Aren't you?” he asks, an earnest question he instantly regrets.

Ulala pauses. Then, with a groan belying the gravity of it, “Maybe. But it’s just ‘cause I’ll be so _bored_ without you.”

That’s a new one; if staving off boredom is truly her main concern, then surely Ulala should be delighted that Katsuya is gone. Never before has he been described as a _stickler_ with such keen frequency as he has since meeting her, to the point where he supposes it constitutes a pet name.

The bizarre thing—the _dangerous_ thing—is that he doesn’t mind.

Yet he knows that what she’s truthfully talking about is her job, and the evenings she’ll spend trawling through the classifieds for work that still doesn’t appeal to her, but might pay slightly more. And when she can’t occupy herself with busywork, a new hobby or the latest fad, she’ll turn on herself.

Katsuya knows because he does the same thing. Well. Rather than busywork, he’s inclined towards just-plain-work; she still hasn’t quite convinced him of astrology’s merits. And given what they know now, about their world and the way Philemon runs the place, he looks upon her star-charts not with apathy but bad blood.

These aren't conversations suited to a phone call, however, so he again lets himself rely on old habits. On taking the paradoxically-named easy way out.

“Don’t pretend Baofu hasn’t already asked you to go drinking. Or… you could check in on Tatsuya for me.”

“Oh, sure. He’d really appreciate that.”

“Just a suggestion,” he says, though it hadn’t been. The idea of his girlfriend dropping by to see his brother is mortifying, so he’d proposed it only with the knowledge she’d decline. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. In three days, you’ll be begging me to extend my stay.”

“Three days feels like forever.”

“It’s less than a week.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He hears padding footsteps, culminating in the soft  _thwump_  of Ulala dropping onto something. A bed, perhaps the sofa. She resumes her silence, and he wonders if he said the wrong thing. It wouldn’t be the first time, so he’s on the cusp of feeling guilty all over again when her voice rescues him in the nick of time—cooing his name, in a tone far too sweet and thoroughly suspicious.

Which is good. If she’s up to something, it means she’s _doing_ something…

“It's three whole days, still. You think that doesn’t deserve something from the minibar?”

…at his expense or otherwise.

Her cards might have their uses after all, he thinks, with a modicum of fondness. Though she’s several cities away, Katsuya swears he feels his wallet grow lighter in his pocket.


	2. Morning #1 (Maya/Katsuya)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can only defend myself by asserting this ship can't _always_ be theatrically tragic.

Katsuya stands by the open window as dawn tumbles in, overseeing the garden while his coffee cools on the counter. Crows in search of insects have taken to hopping about on the mossy stones outside, and Katsuya’s hands are preparing his least favourite vice.

His father had been a smoker too; Katsuya had found him lighting up before breakfast on countless mornings, and he’d always explained it away with the same thing— _I’m never fully awake until my first smoke of the day_. To the ears of such a sombre child, it had sounded like an excuse. As a sombre man, Katsuya finally understands.

For a moment, he does nothing but savour it, dry barley hitting the back of his throat. Maybe his eyes flutter shut in relief, because he hardly notices Maya slinking in through the kitchen door.

She never rises this early, so he’d had no reason to expect her. He is accustomed to pressing his lips to her cheek in lieu of a morning kiss, and if he’s lucky, he gets a groggy _be safe_ before she rolls over back to sleep. (Some mornings he gets mild abuse for disturbing her; those are still lucky mornings, too.)

He turns to her, seeing no reason to keep his confusion off his face. She’s half-awake, rubbing at her eyes with something like annoyance (her usual reaction to mornings) and he’s seen it before, but it never gets less endearing.

When she directs her frown at him, he decides to risk her ire by letting himself smile. Modestly, just a _touch_ amused.

“Sorry,” he says—and then, in order to clarify, “Did I wake you?”

“No,” she says. Her continuing grimace could’ve fooled him, but she goes on, “I wanted to catch you before you left.”

It’s only sensible that Katsuya immediately fears the worst. “Is something wrong?”

“You could say that,” she says. But that’s all she says, padding a few steps closer to him in silence. Her sleepy eyes lift to meet his, just as she cards a hand through her dishevelled hair.

Katsuya moves his arm instinctively, holding the cigarette away from her, because he’s come to understand what this means. Her arms usually slink around his neck, or she kisses him. He’s about to tell her that he can’t right now, a smoker’s courtesy, when she seizes his wrist instead.

She plucks the cigarette from his grasp before he can register what’s happening. It finds itself unceremoniously tossed through the window.

Though his lungs mourn the loss of it—and that’s an awful way to treat the garden—Maya receives only a questioning look.

“I thought I told you to quit,” she says, with the _gall_ to smile.

Not warmly, either. But maybe she’s teasing him.

“I’m trying,” he insists, and it comes out closer to a plea than intended. Whether he’s making statements for his benefit or hers, he can’t be sure. “It isn’t... that simple.”

She purses her lips, a caricature of disappointment. Now she _is_ teasing, but it still works. He feels more ashamed of himself than the situation likely warrants.

“I didn’t have you down as a liar,” she says, and his shoulders stiffen.

Because he’s a _terrible_ liar; they both know that. In the sense that he lies all the time, and in the sense that he’s never any good at it.

Yet he’s not lying now. Everyone is telling him to kick the habit, so he really _would_ prefer to quit, if only to get some peace.

“That’s not fair—”

“I know, I know.”

Her smile softens, and with it, her gaze too. She places her hands flat against his chest—and smiles at him. Nothing more. He feels a flush of warmth beneath her palms.

“I really am trying,” he says, this time a murmur. There’s no need to speak any louder when she’s this close to him, irritable and lovely in the crisp light.

“I believe you,” Maya says. “I just hate those things.”

“Is it… the smell?” he says, idly, glancing down at himself.

She crinkles her nose like she’s displeased, but doesn’t let him stew. It seems she’s grown accustomed to his neuroses, because she knows exactly how to pacify them. The key, as it turns out, is brutal honesty. The ingredient he’d been missing for such a hopelessly long time.

“They’re bad for you, Katsuya! You’re supposed to be a smart guy. I shouldn’t even have to tell you that.”

“Right…”

“And we have enough danger in our lives without having to worry about something a little closer to home.”

“Oh,” he says.

He’d contribute more, but he can’t find the words. It’s too early in the day to articulate exactly why that answer goes straight to the warmth in his chest, makes him reach up to splay a hand over hers.

“Be safe today,” she says. Like she always says when she manages to see him off to work.

He can’t kiss her mouth, not when he tastes like smoke. So he kisses her forehead instead.


	3. Morning #2 (Kei/Katsuya)

If there’s one part of Katsuya’s new morning routine he doubts he’ll ever get used to, it’s the mere presence of another body in his bed. To know someone spent the night simply because they _wanted_ to was once a possibility that had seemed so unlikely it bordered on wishful thinking.

And he sees it from all sorts of different angles, depending on how Kei slept during the night, which is a novelty unto itself. He’s woken to his field of vision consumed by a pale shoulder, or an arm sprawled across his face, or just the top of a black-haired head nestled beneath the duvet. It is most certainly not graceful—Kei sleeps with none of the elegance he embodies while awake—but therein lies the appeal.

That’s only when Kei doesn’t wake first, of course. He’s an abnormally early riser, so more often than not, he’s already long composed by the time Katsuya opens his eyes, propped up against the pillows with his glasses low on his nose and the day’s headlines splashed across his phone. Catching him as anything other than Kei Nanjo, corporate entity, is a little like making off with a basketful of forbidden fruit.

Those moments remind Katsuya that really, the part he _should_ be most overwhelmed by is the fact he’s near such a man at all. The fact that he, Katsuya Suou—home-owner by age twenty-five, law school graduate and respected detective—is someone’s _bit of rough_ almost sounds preposterous. Yet next to one of the country’s wealthiest men, just about anyone would seem like a member of the great unwashed.

Perhaps that’s precisely why Kei stays. Katsuya has little use for his money and even less need for his posturing, requiring no further convincing that Kei is already everything he claims to be and more.

This particular morning has brought with it one of Katsuya’s favourite spectacles: Kei facing him, albeit obscured by the duvet, this time from the jaw down. He’s a burrower in winter—which is likely less of a personal quirk and more a natural consequence of spending time in warmer climates abroad.

And, though Kei’s never said as much, Katsuya suspects he simply finds the Suou home _cold_. Katsuya’s sheets don’t rival the imported, absurdly plush ones Nanjo takes on his travels; he has not extensively insulated the house, nor adopted Western indoor heating.

Yet Kei isn’t one to shy away from protesting anything he perceives as poor treatment, so there must be a reason he hasn’t tried to renovate the place entirely. He hasn’t taken the step of replacing Katsuya’s blankets, at least (though Katsuya suspects he still might; someday soon, he fully anticipates retiring for the night only to see a _‘1’_ emblazoned on the comforter).

Katsuya has his theories. Kei is not the affectionate sort, but he draws tentatively closer once the lights are out. He places so much room between them at the start of the night that Katsuya suspects he does it intentionally, to make his gradual gravitation toward the centre of the divan seem like a grander affair.

It is a provocation, a silent challenge for Katsuya to mention it and ruin the ritual… or accept it and wait, patiently, for Kei to make peace with the cold and the uncomfortable bed and the fact he’s willing to shed all his pretenses here, but only here. And only while asleep.

He’s never complained about waking to Katsuya’s arm draped around his middle, anyway. Which is convenient, because as far as rituals go, it’s as bold as Katsuya is willing to get. He’s accepted it, along with all the other unwritten rules: phones set to silent, no corporate talk, no risk of being infuriatingly told how handsome he looks with _disgracefully_ unkempt hair.

But it’s true. Katsuya likes seeing Kei at his self-described worst, when he hasn’t had time to style away his boyish imperfections with product and white-collar fashion. He likes it so much that he has a tendency to stare, whenever he’s afforded the chance, and he’s only reminded of Kei’s disapproval when Kei himself offers it.

“Stop that,” he says, sleepily, syllables he’d usually pronounce crisply all flowing lazily together. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“Stop what?”

“Watching me. I can feel it.”

The space between his brows twitches as though he intends to frown, if he had the energy. Katsuya smiles, though he does so with equal lethargy. It’s still far too early.

“You caught me,” he says, reaching out. He tucks a strand of Kei’s hair back behind an ear. (He’s never _complimented_ it; he never said he wouldn’t _touch_ it.) “Go back to sleep.”

Kei murmurs something.

“What?”

“You too, I said.”

Even while half-asleep, it seems Kei still has the wherewithal to make demands; he never asks for anything Katsuya isn’t already prepared to give. But Katsuya is no altruist, either—something Kei not only embraces, but encourages ( _one should not shy from making representations on their own behalf, Suou; demand what you deserve, in your work and elsewhere_ ).

So he dips his hand down into their sheets instead, and it doesn’t take long to find one of Kei’s own. He bumps their knuckles together awkwardly, making calibrations, until he finds the alignment he wants.

He does something new and it’s almost without thinking: he slips their hands together.

A pause follows. He half-expects Kei to pull away with some overstated noise of disgust, but that noise doesn’t come. Instead, Kei doesn’t do much of anything—either too drowsy for more or too ambivalent about being touched to put further stock into it.

Even so, Katsuya’s heart just about flips.

After it becomes apparent Kei isn’t going to pull away, he closes his eyes again. When he next opens them, he anticipates Kei will be busying himself in the kitchen, or preoccupied with his phone. Armed with some line about lazy police officers and a pompous breed of smirk, most likely.

It’s enough for Katsuya to be unwaveringly sure that of all the places a man like Kei could be, he’s still going to be right here.


	4. Pastry (Gen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: a childhood memory.

This is his mother before she could only move like a wraith: active, bright, fast on her feet. The assortment of pots and pans around her is daunting (washing-up is thankfully one of father's chores), but the aroma is hypnotic. Whatever she’s preparing smells like fruit and honey, which Katsuya likes far more than he's willing to admit. Having a sweet tooth is for kids—hardly appropriate for a boy of seven.

He lingers behind her and watches, in the careful way he prefers to observe things. Inconsequential details get committed to memory first: batter dripping down the side of a bowl, the sound of spoons exchanging musical notes with one another. The accompaniment from his mother’s lips as she sings to herself, softly, with energy she’ll lose as Katsuya gets older.

He doesn’t know what she’s so happy about—her hand keeps touching her stomach, so maybe she’s just hungry—but it’s rare that she bakes. He can’t remember the last time she did. And he didn’t appreciate the work that went into it, either.

There will be so much here for his father to clean.

She stands in the middle of the scents and sounds and sights, the most welcoming vision in all of it. She turns, suddenly (Katsuya hadn’t realised she’d noticed him; _ah, my darling, didn’t I tell you mothers have eyes in the back of their heads?_ ), and extends her hand to him. Grasping a ladle like it could be the carrot or the stick.

“Do you want to help, Katsuya?"

“No.” His answer is swift, and he defiantly folds his arms in the hopes she won't notice it's really the opposite of what he longs to say. She either sees straight through him or sees something else, because she laughs when he tells her with equal conviction: “Baking is for _girls_ , mama."


	5. Loose Change (Gen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: a memory involving love.

“I’m not buying you any rice cakes until you finish your yakitori.”

Despite how eager he'd been to accept the skewer now in his grip, Tatsuya dislikes this arrangement, if his pout is anything to go by. But he is six and Katsuya is thirteen, so he should naturally be deferring to his elder's judgement.

That’s the problem with the summer festival: too many stalls and never enough pocket money. Even so, Tatsuya is treacherously convincing when his eyes go that big, and Katsuya finds his gaze drifting towards the sweets counter. Just to check the prices.

There is an obstacle between himself and the menu board, in the form of a woman wearing traditional dress. Her hair is up and she's smiling, with a girl who can’t be much younger than Tatsuya clinging to her skirt. The woman is ordering something—whatever it is, Katsuya can’t hear it over the babble of the festival—but it must be her child who’s receiving the benefit. The girl looks positively delighted.

There's a man, too, approaching from behind to stand with them. His hand rests upon the girl's shoulder, remaining there while she glances up briefly to greet him, and Katsuya can at least discern enough of their faces by lantern-light to catch the way they look at each other. It’s warm.

Katsuya knows he's only thirteen and therefore not much of an elder at all, no matter what he might tell his brother. But he thinks he understands it, the magnitude of something so minor as making a child smile. Or perhaps just how deceptively  _difficult_  it is.

Whatever he's seeing, it leaves the urge to spoil Tatsuya in its wake. Begrudgingly, he reaches for his wallet—and Tatsuya, far too clever for his own good, flashes a smile that is nowhere near delighted. Far closer to being triumphant.

“I want  _two_  rice cakes, brother.”


	6. Mother's Day (Gen)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early so I don't forget.

One thousand quiet pillars stand watch over the hill. No wind can rattle them, and no tremor below their foundations has ever shaken them. It’s a testament to Sumaru’s convenient location, of course; terrible weather rolling in from the coast dissipates past the city limits, can’t bring down the graveyard in the same way it topples those big corporate buildings.

Standing now amidst the stones, Katsuya would like to think there’s more to it—that each lonely spirit holds their monument in place as Atlas did the sky. But that’s all it is. A passing whim he’d prefer to believe.

There is no such presence at his mother’s grave, nor signs of anyone watching over it. The absence of flowers tells him nobody has been here for quite some time. Overgrown weeds peek through the stones at the foot of her memorial, shivering in the breeze of a timorous May morning. If only to remove those in time for Mother’s Day, Katsuya thinks he should have visited sooner.

But there is more to the world than a burial plot in Sumaru will ever see, and Katsuya has been busy exploring it. Still, his own cautious ambition would be no excuse for leaving his mother if she still dwelt here as flesh and blood, so it shouldn’t be an excuse now that she doesn’t.

She hadn’t lived to see him move away, but he knows she would have missed him—enough to write, send cards, to attempt mastering digital communication when even phones had troubled her. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have moved at all, content to progress through the precinct her husband had grown to detest. Shouldering another mess he hadn’t made.

Katsuya kneels, in what little space there is between the rows of headstones, to place down the customary bouquet. Lilies, for they’d looked nice in the florist’s window. For all he’d learnt about her, from her extensive knowledge of samurai movies to her preferred method of taking tea, he’d never learnt what her favourite flower was… Or perhaps she didn’t have one. Perhaps she’d find that question ridiculous, laughing at her most serious son and his propensity to place everything into categories, to make sense of their enormous planet by boxing it in.

Because the world had always come more naturally to her. His mother had been the wisest person he’d ever met, quick with an answer and quicker with a joke, understanding life so intimately that Katsuya had always believed he’d reach the same plane of autonomy too, given time.

He hasn’t. But he’s made peace with it.

As he continues to kneel, long enough for the uncomfortable position to make his calves ache, Katsuya tells her the usual things. How well Tatsuya is doing, and how fast Tokyo is, and how he impressed his boss there with one of her recipes just the other week. How her boys haven’t yet allowed the family home to fall into disrepair, so she needn’t worry.

Time was, he used to think she’d respond, if he waited long enough, like some kind of sign would descend from the heavens. With everything he’s experienced now, meeting Gods and never once learning if there’s meaning in any of it, it would maybe stand to reason that he’d expect a sign even more—yet he doesn’t. Her quiet pillar remains quiet.

He’s always finished his visits the same way. There’s no reason to deviate from tracing his knuckles across the inscription of her name, offering a smile, or an approximation of one. (He doesn’t know why he bothers; she’d always seen right through him when he pretended to smile.) He tells her he loves her—and again he would linger, as though there was just a chance of hearing it back.

But he’s too busy, now. There is much of the world he needs to see, and he knows, in some unacknowledged part of him, that wherever his mother is, it isn’t here.


End file.
